Page 31 of Ten Beach Road

Twelve

Nicole woke up stiff the next morning, her body no longer used to actual physical labor or to sleeping without benefit of bed frame or box spring. During her childhood a mattress was not a thing to be taken for granted, but over the years since she’d left home and created a new life for herself she’d grown accustomed to creature comforts and was, in fact, immensely comforted by them.

Sunlight streamed in through the uncovered windows and fanned across her face. Through the window she could see a clear blue sky with only a hint of pulled-cotton clouds. Her cell phone lay next to her attached to the charger that she’d plugged into the closest outlet. Her Louis Vuitton suitcase sat on the floor, its cover propped up against the wall. The house settled around her, its old joints creaking.

Her gaze flitted around the empty space that would be hers for the summer. She didn’t have furniture or a TV or a single piece of art on the wall, but she did have her own room and bathroom, unusable though it was at the moment. A Sam’s Club towel and washcloth sat on her nightstand. This was what her life had come to.

Her smile faded as she thought about why and who was responsible for her reduced circumstances, and she closed her eyes briefly against the sunlight and the truth. Six years older than Malcolm, she’d done her best to shield him from the grimmer realities of their childhood—the years when their father, who’d begun as a harbor pilot, had bounced from menial job to more menial job, up and down the eastern seaboard. When he died while working as a day laborer on the docks in Jacksonville, the bouncing stopped. And so did the small trickle of money it had produced. Nicole had been thirteen and Malcolm seven when they’d moved into the dreary duplex that was all their mother could afford on her earnings as a hotel maid. They’d clung to that hovel by their fingertips, their mother working a second job nights at a bar, Nicole trying to fill in the gaps in mothering.

Even as a child, Malcolm was bright with startling good looks and far more than his fair share of charm. He wielded these assets instinctively at first and then, as he grew older, with a fierce intent. She’d been alternately proud of and worried about him. When he made a wrong choice or cut some corner, Nicole had stepped in to protect him, understanding as no one else could the desperate need to overcome their circumstances. She simply couldn’t bear to see him punished for trying to build a new life or for believing her when she told him that he could be anything and anyone he chose to be.

It had never occurred to her that he’d one day aspire to being a thief.

Though she knew it was futile, Nicole pulled her phone close and began to scroll through her address book until she’d called every number she’d ever had for Malcolm, each one representing another step up the ladder of success he’d so determinedly climbed.

Just like they were the last time she’d tried, all of them were no longer in service or had been disconnected. If Malcolm was using a phone, it wasn’t one he’d ever shared with her or apparently intended to.

With a sigh, Nicole climbed off her mattress and carried her running clothes through the doorway and down the two steps to the private bath. It was decidedly funky with raspberry tiled walls and a delicate, if still filthy, cut-glass chandelier hanging from the raspberry tile ceiling. The sink was a wall-hung rectangle of once creamy white porcelain. Wishing she could simply turn on the pockmarked chrome handles and wash her face and brush her teeth, she squinted into the ancient mirror with its etched flower border, but the glass was so cloudy she could barely make out the details of her face. With a sigh, she wriggled into the spandex and pulled her hair into a ponytail.

For the briefest of moments she allowed herself to imagine just heading down to the beach “as is,” but Nicole, who had relied every bit as strenuously on her God-given assets as Malcolm had, carried her makeup bag to the hall bath, also an ode to 1920s tile, and spent the next fifteen minutes applying her “armor.”

Treading gently so as not to wake the others, Nicole left through the side kitchen door and did her stretching on the pool deck, where she could enjoy the view and the early morning sun on her face and skin.

She took the path from the house, bypassing the jetty, where a lone fisherman baited his hook. The pelican and seabird audience had already claimed their spots; perhaps these were the early birds that hoped to catch the worm? Once on the beach she began a slow jog, sticking to the hard-packed sand just beyond the tide line. Her shoes crunched rhythmically on the nights’ deposit of broken shell; the warm breeze teased her hair and caressed her cheeks.

Just beyond the Paradise Grille the beach widened. A bit later the larger Gulf-front homes began. An old man on a bench up near a clump of sea oats watched her progress, his tobacco-colored skin attesting to years probably spent on that very bench.

Behind her the crunch of shell announced the presence of another runner and Nicole checked her speed slightly to let them pass. Instead the bulky shadow of the other runner melded with and then blotted out her own. Nicole glanced to her right and saw that it was Agent Giraldi, who’d matched his pace to hers so that they were, for all intents and purposes, running together.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, turning her gaze back to the beach in front of her as they ran.

“Just out for a little run,” he said beside her. “Beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

Nicole kept her tone nonchalant. “It was.”

She could feel him smile, but he didn’t comment. Nor did he leave.

She sneaked a peek out of the corner of her eye to take a second look at the bare chest that triangled down to the trim waist and well-defined abs. A plain white T-shirt, which he had taken off and stuck in the waistband of his navy running shorts, bounced against one muscled thigh as he ran. Apparently the FBI still had certain physical requirements. His beak of a nose looked sunburned and his cheekbones carried early morning stubble. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of sunglasses that did not look like government issue.

“So what are you doing in Florida, Agent Giraldi?”

“Same thing I was doing in New York, Ms. Grant,” he replied conversationally.

At the Don CeSar, the pool boys were setting up chairs and chaises while others carried cushions down to the wooden chaises lined up on the beach. A volleyball net bobbed slightly in the breeze. The thatched hut advertising parasail rides and Jet Ski rentals appeared open for business. Maybe she’d come down here later and have a drink by the pool and pretend she was in civilization.

“Pass-a-Grille’s not exactly your usual kind of stomping grounds,” Agent Giraldi observed as he ran easily beside her.

A stitch began to pull at her side and she was feeling just the tiniest bit winded, but the agent hadn’t sounded at all out of breath, so Nicole was careful not to let him see it. Without comment, she turned and began to run back the way she’d come. Agent Giraldi stuck by her side, not missing a step.

“I’m not here to stomp,” she replied though she’d intended to remain silent in hopes that he’d simply jog off and leave her alone. “And I don’t really appreciate being followed.”

They ran in silence for a few minutes, but Nicole was too aware of Giraldi to enjoy her surroundings.

“Your brother was photographed leaving a bank in the Cayman Islands last week,” he said. “Yesterday we caught a glimpse of him on a yacht registered to a dummy corporation in Panama.”

She managed not to respond, but it wasn’t easy. The stitch in her side was getting bigger; it was getting harder to keep her breathing silent.

“Your brother is living the high life, Ms. Grant. While you’re sleeping on a mattress in an empty house, which you are currently scrubbing like a maid.”

---